Glass Houses
by Seereth
Summary: Sometimes Discipline Cottage holds two very different birds. Femslash. SFF Emelan Vertical Keyboard Challenge 2006 entry.


Glass Houses

Osprey hears Lark singing. Soft and low and not a lark's song at all, but she is singing just the same. She comes to Discipline sometimes when Crane and Rosethorn can't be found. Without one of the other there is only so much the rest of them can do. Briar looks irritated when she tells him, but he goes off with whichever of the three girls are in Winding Circle that day.

Osprey is young but she is not stupid. She knows what she is doing. She knows that Lark probably does too and that neither of them will do anything about it.

Dedicates are not supposed to be jealous. Lark makes them both tea.

* * *

While Osprey is there, Discipline holds two birds. A songbird and a bird of prey.

Lark asked her once why a woman who worked with plants chose a fish hawk for her name. Osprey hadn't been able to answer her, except to ask why a woman who worked with thread chose a songbird.

* * *

In the winter, it is not unpleasant to work in Crane's greenhouse. But in the summer, it can be pure misery. Moisture collects on every surface, making the wood tables split and the glass containers slippery. The glass walls mist over and it seems like one is working inside a hot, wet cloud.

Lark is looking at her. Her head is cocked to one side and her eyes are mild. Osprey doesn't say that though. Why, she can't say exactly. Perhaps some vestige of loyalty she didn't know she had.

"It's not so different from working indoors," she says. "Except hotter, sometimes."

Lark nods. Osprey stirs her tea.

If Osprey is better at conversation than Crane, it is only because she doesn't insult people before she ever learns their names. She dislikes imposing her poor conversational skills on Lark. Well, no, she doesn't dislike it. She feels guilty and awkward and those are feelings she doesn't like. The feeling that she is getting back at someone by doing this – and she doesn't know who it is, exactly, or how – _that_ feeling she liked.

* * *

Osprey is cataloguing samples in trays. The tubes require careful labeling and even more careful handling – in the humidity of the greenhouse, the glass tubes quickly become slippery and crash from one's fingers in a moment of carelessness.

Which is exactly what happens to Osprey. She drops a tray of four tubes, spilling dirt and plants and glass over the table. The shards cut her hands badly, she's fairly sure one or two have been embedded in her palms. The novice next to her freezes and shoots her a glance from under dark lashes. Osprey opens her hands and hisses in pain.

"Get this cleaned up," she tells the novice. "I'm going to get my hands tended to."

The blue-robed Water Temple Dedicate who binds and cleans her hands has cheekbones like Lark's. She looks up brazenly through her eyelashes in a way Lark would never.

* * *

Crane is a miserable man to work for. He is scrupulous – and rightly so. He is also short on praise and long on criticism. But he is the best in Winding circle – Rosethorn doesn't teach except in occasional cases or for endearing street rats with powerful magic – and if Osprey can work with him, she can work with anyone.

But still, it is hard to remember that when he throws her work on the floor and condemns it all as worthless.

"_He_ needs to get laid," one of the novices pressed from another temple mutters.

"He is getting laid," Osprey says. She rubs her eyelids, wincing at the pull in her hands. She wonders if any of the slides can be salvaged.

"Well," says the novice, "maybe he should try drugs or something."

"Help me clean this up," Osprey says. The novice, who really is very helpful, kneels next to her and they pick up the shards together. Osprey gets more cuts on her fingers, but some of the slides are saved. Crane is gone again by the time they finish, but Rosethorn is there working quietly beside Briar.

The new cuts on Osprey's fingers dry quickly. She feels a little sick.

* * *

Two days later Rosethorn and Crane disappear for forty five minutes. No one can find them anywhere and the Dedicates in the greenhouse look at each other out of the corner of their eyes, trying not to snicker.

"Green Man _take_ them," Osprey says. She kicks the table leg with enthusiasm and immediately regrets it. She leaves the greenhouse. It would not be inaccurate to say she storms out of the greenhouse.

"But what are we -- " says someone. Osprey whirls on them.

"_I_ don't care," she says.

Before the door closes behind her she hears the novice she works with say, "Maybe _she_ needs to get laid."

* * *

There is a saying about glass houses and stones that Osprey does not like. She does not like it because she works in a glass house.

And, all right, maybe there are reasons beyond the immediately tangible.

* * *

Lark boils water, but this time she lets Osprey take down the cups. For some reason, she drops them. They cut her hands just as well as glass does. Osprey hisses angrily. "Careless," she says.

Lark lets the water boil so she can bandage Osprey's hand.

What is means somehow is this:

Lark with her back against the kitchen wall and her green robes hiked up around her hips. Osprey's cuts open again and blood smears on Lark's thighs but neither of them notice until it has already dried.

* * *

**Notes:** This took third place in the SFF's Emelan Vertical Keyboard Challenge. 


End file.
